


i'll say the only words i know

by abusedtrademarkemoji



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And its hot, Crushes, Español | Spanish, F/M, Idiots in Love, Meet-Cute, Mutual Pining, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, What else is new, also this is literature porn, michelle jones is soft af, peter doesnt know how to talk to girls, peter speaks spanish, teens that can't communicate feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 21:38:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16313126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abusedtrademarkemoji/pseuds/abusedtrademarkemoji
Summary: “Don’t you have a tick?”“A what now?”“A tick.” Cindy says it so blatantly, in a way that means she thinks the question is obvious. That everyone in the world but Michelle knows what it means. “Something that makes your body go ‘unf’ and your mind go to static.”Michelle pauses, deliberates. “Nope.”“Yes, you do. Everyone has one.”“Nah, I really don’t.”[michelle very much does have a tick but you wouldn't know it until she has an affair with the new kid who speaks even less english than a dog.]





	i'll say the only words i know

**Author's Note:**

> 100% based off of Paul McCartney using his song "Michelle" to wheel girls. go listen its cute. translations at the end :) also i don't speak spanish lmk if any of these are wrong!!

Michelle and Cindy are sorting books back onto the shelves after school, mindlessly following the Dewey Decimal System all while performing their typical after-school Thursday repertoire. This means they talk about following: crypto-currency, books, DACA and lastly, boys.

“Hold up, you really think that guys who play baseball are hotter than guys who play football? What the fuck does that even mean?”

“It _means_ that guys who play baseball are hotter than guys who play football. Exactly as it sounds,” Cindy says, like that makes sense or whatever.

“So, if I gave you a pair of identical twins, you could tell which played football and which played baseball based solely on who you think is hotter?”

“MJ, MJ, sweetie, look. It doesn’t work that way.” Michelle rolls her eyes at the condescending tone. She’s not stupid, she’s just asking. “Once I find out which one plays baseball, _then_ I think he is hotter.”

Suddenly, Michelle realizes she is very tired. From school mostly, but the conversation doesn’t help one bit. “That’s even dumber than I imagined.”

“I don’t make the rules, okay? This is science.” Cindy continues until they turn the book cart to the F-H non-fiction aisle. “If I know he plays baseball, then I know he has good hand-eye coordination.” Michelle stares at her in the way that someone would stare at a brick wall. “Oh my god, MJ. You’re killing me. Hand-eye coordination means he knows what he’s doing! Hand to hand, eye to eye. He will always know what his body is doing, and where exactly his hands need to be.”

“Gross. I don’t think it works that way,” Michelle says dubiously, one combed eyebrow raised.

Cindy gives a long, exasperated sigh. “Yeah, well you don’t think a lot of things.”

Michelle gives a disgruntled snort.

“Don’t you have a tick?”

“A what now?”

“A tick.” Her friend says it so blatantly, in a way that means she thinks the question is obvious. That everyone in the world but Michelle knows what it means. “Something that makes your body go ‘unf’ and your mind go to static.”

Michelle pauses, deliberates. “Nope.”

“Yes, you do. Everyone has one.”

“Nah, I really don’t.”

Cindy tosses the book she was holding back onto the cart. Her hands are clasped together and begging. “MJ, please! Tell me! Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease—” With each word, Cindy’s voice rises in pitch until it nears a dog-whistle.

“Jesus, fine!” Cindy’s face falls out of its merciless contortion and immediately returns to its perpetual state of all-knowingness. “I like people who speak languages.”

Clearly, Cindy is not satisfied by the answer. “The fuck? Everyone speaks a language, idiot.”

“No…” The word is pulled out of Michelle like it was a mile-long scarf out of a magician’s sleeve. “I said languages. Plural. If they’re bilingual, then I am DTF.”

The sound of a thick, hardcover book slamming onto the ground is audible from the next aisle, but it isn’t enough to cover the voiced squeak of surprise that is also made.

* * *

The next day, in the very same library, Michelle is thrown off her game. Her favourite study carrel is taken, the one that’s tucked way into the far, back corner, where no one ever goes, where the only books shelved there are written exclusively for those interested in physical education. Those kinds of people who don’t exist at Midtown Tech.

Instead, she is forced to read about Angelou’s relationship with her mother at the big group study tables that her Acadec team meets at. She hates these tables. It’s like she is _inviting_ people to sit with her.

It only takes twenty minutes for that uninvited someone next to her.

Michelle doesn’t even waste her energy to face them, not until she hears “Disculpe, ¿hay alguien sentado aquí?”1 at least. Her previously relaxed posture instantaneously straightens at the soft voice. Her breath catches and when she faces the intruder, it’s a boy with floppy hair and a wrinkled t-shirt.

She’s not sure what he’s saying. She thinks it’s a question based on the intonation, but it isn’t until he gestures at the chair next to her. “No, I mean yes. I-” There doesn’t seem to be a right answer if you don’t even know what the initial question is.

Flustered, she tucks her face back into her book.

He tentatively sits down, pulls out _Don Quixote_ in its original language for himself.

Michelle’s life gets worse. What is a _boy_ doing here in the library, _impressing_ her? The disrespect.

“Mi nombre es Pedro,”2 he says, holding his hand out.

She reaches out to accept the gesture with hesitance, “Michelle.” He clutches her hand two seconds too long for it to be called casual. Michelle swallows the breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

When Pedro takes his hand away, he doesn’t say anything else for the rest of her spare period. When she gets up, she mutters a goodbye, but at the same second her calf feels a wave of coolness and she realizes that his leg tangled up within her own, resting like it belonged there. She hadn’t even noticed until it was gone. And all too soon.

She keeps staring at him, like an idiot. Her book is tucked to her chest as if it was protecting her somehow, it nearly strangles her from how tightly she holds it against herself. So tightly, that she can feel her unsteady heartbeat thud through the pages.

The warmth of Pedro’s eyes seem so lively despite the clinical fluorescent lights above them, and she thinks that he thinks that she should be saying more. Decidedly, this is the day her tongue chooses not to work, it’s usual cutting wit numb and weighted by nerves.

“Okay, bye.” she feels slow. Why did she have to say goodbye again?

He gives her a tiny salute, “hasta pronto.”3

Her book must be permanently stuck to her now like a fifth limb. It will have to be surgically removed because it is practically penetrating through her ribs. “Yeah, bye, okay.” And when Pedro gives her a lopsided smile, Michelle turns as quick as possible in order to refrain from being caught in a trance and staring forever. At least she manages to train herself not to sprint the fuck out of there. It’s like she has never spoken to another living organism during her whole 16 years of living.

* * *

Michelle hates life, because she got absolutely no work done this weekend. Every time she blinked, she saw Pedro’s dumb, cute, lopsided smile and it made her close her eyes for minutes at a time. When she took her earphones out, she swears she could hear his voice haunt her, rolling his tongue with every ‘r’.

* * *

Monday morning, she almost thrums with the anticipation to find Cindy. The moment she does, it floods out of her so rapidly that she misses being the stoic and mysterious Michelle. “Yo, so I met this guy, his name is Pedro, he speaks Spanish, I want to throw up, he makes my body do the ‘unf’ thing, I want to die, he reads real and valid literature beyond our grade reading level, I want to see him again, I’ve never seen him before in my life, I want his leg on me always, his body is so warm.”

“You’re such a lit snob, Rory,” she responds.

Michelle asks “is that really all you got out of that?” She also feels the glow of someone’s stare on her back, but she files that away to investigate another time.

“Well, that and his body being warm. What’s up with that? Did he already get into your pants?”

“No! What? Oh my god, no. Ugh, Cindy. No.”

“Bruh, take a breath.”

Oh, right. Michelle has to do that thing where she breathes. “You need to meet him though, I need to find him again.” She is all the characters she has ever judged in a 90’s romcom.

“In a school of 3,700 people? Yeah, good luck with that.”

What a way to put a damper on her mood. And so it goes.

* * *

It does go, apparently, because when she goes to sit at her study carrel during her spare again, she passes the murder scene from yesterday. The culprit is already sitting there, easy and handsome. Michelle hopes he hasn’t noticed her presence yet, because she wants to watch him some more. Study his features like they are flashcards. Michelle has a slight case of photographic memory, so maybe later when she quizzes herself on him she can recall the exact angle of his crooked nose and how many crinkles his eyes have when he smiles at his book.

Feeling a tad too close to creepy, she silently slips into yesterday’s spot.

“Esperaba que vinieras,”4 he looks up at her as she sits and his eyes are just as lovely as she remembers. It’s horrible.

Just like before, she can’t understand a single word, so she replies with just a smile and a nod so subtle Pedro probably didn’t see it anyway. He bats his eyes twice, maybe he did notice.

“Eres muy linda,”5 flows out of him and she swears it was rhythmically.

Michelle still has no idea what he said, but she’s going to try her goddamn best to remember it well enough to be able to type it into Google translate as soon as she is in a room where he is not. Eres muy linda. Eres muy linda. Eres muy linda.

She recites it in her head so many times that she overthinks how long it’s taking her to read this page. What if he is judging her words per minute? She flips the page and takes the L. Plot isn’t central to this book anyway. Sorry, Joseph Conrad.

The rest of the hour continues in much the same way as it did the week before. The intertwining of legs, the minimal talking. Only today, their elbows bump thrice and she notices each time.

Also: she only says goodbye once. Total win.

He says, “Cada hora que paso contigo me parece un segundo.”6 Fuck, she’s not going to remember all of that.

Hopefully her smile is not too obviously fawning. Alternatively, she hopes he does not notice.

* * *

Google translate officially replaces Cindy as her best friend. _You look very pretty_.

Michelle? Deceased.

* * *

It almost seems to be official, or scheduled, or something, because Pedro is waiting for her in their spot once again. She likes hearing that—their spot—she likes sharing with him.

“Mi libro se siente sola. ¿Te gustaría acompañarme con la tuya?”7

She dutifully reads her book, quiet and hypersensitive to the boy beside her. Michelle tucks the loose ends of her tattered ponytail behind her ear. She wonders if he is equally aware of her as she is to him. He could be, because every day he watches her more and more, choosing to peek past his own book.

“Eres tan intelligente,”8 he whispers, holy and wishful. Michelle recalls the first two words from before, so she knows he is saying that she is _something_ , and that something could be smart? Intelligente seems pretty universal here.

“Thank you,” because this one is easy to accept. She is smart. She knows that. And she knows that when she speaks English to him it means nothing, but she asks anyway. “Will you be meeting me here every day now?”

The way that his eyes twinkle makes her think that he must like the sound of her voice, since her words mean nothing to him.

“Donde hay patron, no manda mariner,”9 rolls off his tongue so delectably that MJ feels faint. To cap it all off, his legs ensnare one of her own and the heat of his body drips through both the layers of their jeans. With an easy smile, one that shows he knows exactly what kind of effect he has on her, he leans on his elbow to face her more directly. It’s subtle, but she notices.

They read together in silence for another 15 minutes until it breaks by the bell telling them their time together is over. She offers him a kind smile before standing to leave.

“Mañana es otro día,”10 he returns in exchange for her smile, and it serves to stretch her lips wider, her teeth brighter.

* * *

Her mom thinks it’s kind of weird underneath all the sweet, heart-melty parts. Her dad loves it. He thinks Pedro is the best thing since canned bread. This is why Michelle hates disclosing the other parts to her life, but then she remembers that her parents are by extension her best friends. Behind all the cloying moments of embarrassment, she knows she’s going to miss it once she lives away from home for uni, so she tells them anyway.

“You should always get yourself a boy who knows how smart you are, MJ. That’s ought to be number one on the list.” He taps a finger on his chin. “Y’know what, honey, I think I told you how smart you are on our first date.”

“Obviously,” Her mother frowns, but Michelle recognizes this as the one she uses to muffle a smile. Her mom must be infamous for poorly concealing emotions. “I remember that, because I’m smart.”

At the coy and matter-of-fact statement her father’s laughs ring throughout their yellow painted kitchen, it bounces off granite countertops, leaps over and into the living room, and Michelle so desperately believes in love.

* * *

As a result of her dad’s wrap up pep talk, Michelle has a strategy. If she can’t understand him then surely, he could not know what she is saying either, so she might as well say the truth. It goes like this: “Did you ever notice how god-grieving hot you are?”

His response goes like this: “I-no sé!”11 His eyebrows do something just short of actual gymnastics on his face. Michelle thinks maybe there was a glitch in the matrix.

“Okay, well… you are, so.” She flips her page and pretends nothing happened.

* * *

He’s not waiting for her on Thursday like usual, and Michelle stresses. There is a high chance that she freaked him out yesterday. Why did she open her mouth like that? What did that even accomplish?

10 after 1 in the afternoon, in comes Pedro who is wearing what just might be the tightest shirt he could own. It makes his arms look like _woah_ and Michelle is suddenly warm all over and very aware of what this morning’s breakfast tasted like when it climbs back up her throat. Her face blanches like she has a fever, and Pedro looks so, so smug.

He does not even open his book, when he sits down. Instead, he has the audacity to set his book on the table, fold his arms over it and sink upon these Grecian marble arms of his. Pedro’s face turns, and he watches her closely.

Michelle has spent a lot of her life preparing for thing’s that might never happen. The apocalypse, the presidency of Donald Trump, the discovery of aliens. Never did she prepare herself for seeing Pedro’s eyes blinking at her sleepily. As the hour goes by he nods away on and off and Michelle just wants to run her hands through his mop of brown curls. She wants to pet his shoulders and wrap him in blankets and kiss him goodnight. She hopes he wants to do all those things to, but with her, because of course. Over the limits of the hour, she grows comfortable under his gaze. It has to do with exposure therapy, she bets.

In the last few minutes, he looks much more awake for his face seems even more vibrant than ever before.

“He estado pensando en ti,” he mumbles, “te deseo, Michelle.”12

“Same, I don’t know what you said,” Michelle confirms, “but same.”

* * *

Cindy doesn’t really believe her when Michelle spells out the advancements made. “You can’t be serious, you’re practically married at this point.”

“Yikes, don’t get my hopes up, Cin.”

“What else could you be after all that?”

“Uhm, not married! Jesus Christ, we’ve spoken like, twice. I don’t know,” she downplays.

“Well, that’s still twice more than you’ve ever spoken to any love interest before. ” Hmm, that’s a good point.

“That’s not how math works.” Michelle scrutinizes the book she’s holding, decoding where it belongs. Numbers don’t make sense to her when she’s thinking about Pedro and it makes their volunteer hours with the librarian take so much longer than necessary. “Anyway, doesn’t matter. We’re not married. Yet.”

A familiar squeak is heard from somewhere in the stacks.

* * *

Friday, she’s in love.

Before, things between them were slow, often shy, sometimes uncertain. Not today. Pedro takes no heed in sitting as closely as possible to her. He leans on his elbow so that they share each other’s breath. “Solo puedo pensar en ti.”13

“Who are you?” Her eyes a drifting shut as they lower to focus on his face that’s tipping up to meet hers. “How did you get into my life?”

Her questions are answered only with his lips, which melt into hers and it feels like psychosis. An out of body experience. She is floating above and watching down on them, like a tilting stage. His lips are soft on her own which are chapped. Michelle has spent each of her spare blocks this week chewing on them in nerves. Once, to the point of near bleeding. Pedro kisses her like he wants to heal it, like maybe if he tried hard enough it would all be okay. Like her lips wouldn’t sting in the wind anymore, like his lips were a shield to the austerity of the world.

When they part, she’s scared that she looks high—dry eyes, pinkish lips almost burnt from smoky heat, this elated feeling in her chest, a body high. He is her mirror, only his pale skin reveals a much deeper blush than her own. His crawls up the neck and peaks at the tops of his ears. It only makes him impossibly prettier in MJ’s eyes.

“Tarda una hora en conocerte y solo un dia en enamorarme. Pero me llevará toda una vida poder olvidarte.”14

Michelle will never know what he is saying, she thinks that’s what makes this so easy. There is no miscommunication in a relationship that only uses body language.

Pedro does not stay the full hour. He gives her a well-worn copy of _La Celestina_. The paperback cover is folded at odd angles from being thrown in backpacks she assumes. There are microscopic tears in the spine, the bind peeling from use. Miscellaneous pages are dog-eared, but he flips to one in particular. There is a highlighted passage.

“Tengo que decirte algo, pero me da pena.”15 He isn’t meeting her eyes and confusion creeps its way into all the cells of Michelle’s body. “Perdóname,”16 his voice stifles when he kisses the word into the top of her head. He walks away backwards, watching her perplexed face adoringly concerned all the way to the doors.

His smile that day is the same one that puts her to sleep that night.

* * *

As it so happens, forgettable, lame, perpetual side-kick Ned is not so forgettable after all. She should have always paid closer attention to him over the years because she can see him chatting with Pedro in a chummy way that says _hey, we are best friends!_ after the final bell before the weekend. He’s clapping Pedro on the back of his neck, exclaiming how great it’s going to be binging season two of Clone Wars.

It’s particularly interesting to Michelle, because Ned says this in perfect English. And she _swears_ she hears Pedro say something about going to Delmar’s. In English. How is he speaking in English?

Next Acadec practice, she’s going to grill him until it hurts. Two and a half days, that’s how much time she has to devise a plan to make him crack. She needs to know who in the high hell this guy is.

* * *

She has plans with Cindy and Betty after school that day for AP prep, but she can hardly pay attention. Pedro’s copy of _La Celestina_ is burning a hole into her lap where it sits.

Cindy makes a comment about it, but MJ blows it off. For reasons unknown, Michelle wants to keep this to herself for now. It’s a private matter between two people, she decides. Or a secret of sorts. Something in between, had there been a spectrum.

Immediately, when she gets home, her bag is thrown to the floor and she holds the book with two hands, holding it in front of her clownishly. Her eyes scour the words, commits it to memory so that she could type it out without mistakes into her translating app.

It goes like this:

_There is nothing more proper to lovers than impatience; especially new ones. They never once think of the harm which the meat of their desire may occasion unto them and their servants._

The words do not give her the answers she thought they would. They do not provide an ounce of comfort.

She does manage to find an English translation of the play in some online archives, and reading it sucks. Or, it’s a good piece, actually, but it… She can’t explain it.

Michelle stumbles over a summary of it to her dad, while he’s cooking dinner and she’s trying not to cut her thumb off as she chops up some bell peppers.

“So basically everyone gets the person they want and then dies.”

Her dad is one inch from bored, but out of love he listens.

“Almost, yeah.”

“As punishment for rushing into love.”

“I think so.”

“And you think he’s trying to tell you something?”

“He definitely is.” Her dad throws garlic into the pan and the air becomes delectable.

“I might change my mind on this boy. He seems convoluted. If everyone just said how they felt, this wouldn’t be a problem.”

Michelle doesn’t want to say that she agrees, she wants to believe that this will work out, so she stays quiet.

* * *

After the next Acadec practice, she has thoroughly fried Ned’s brain. She deems now to be an appropriate time to approach him, while he is still newly terrified of her. “I didn’t know you spoke Spanish, Ned.” The comment is flippant but casual.

Casual enough to catch him off guard, because he blanks and says “I don’t.”

“Then who’s your friend?”

Ned looks every which way, as if the right answer was pinned to the bulletin boards around them. “Who?” The panic radiates off him, and Michelle feels like he’s a fly caught in her web. Her lip curls in triumph.

“C’mon Ned, don’t pretend you have more than one friend,” she commandeers.

“Wow, don’t @ me like that, MJ.” He holds his hands up in forfeit.

“Spit it out already.”

“He’s new.”

“I know that much.”

“Then—he’s from Chile.”

“How do you guys talk to each other?”

“...With technology?”

“Really.” It’s deadpan. Not a question. She steps closer to him, looms in his orbit.

Ned squirms, “okay, not really.”

“Oh my god, did I just get catfished in real life?”

“He’s still who he says he is!”

“No, he isn’t,” she laments. If he was really who he was pretending to be, he wouldn’t run away. He wouldn’t send secret messages in the form of grand literate gestures. Even if she secretly thought it was sweetly unique, she hates not knowing things. It almost ruins his gesture. But only almost.  “Boys are so gross.” There’s a reason she used to testify for this.

“Boys can be gross, but he isn’t. I swear he’s a good guy.”

MJ remains skeptical. “Is Pedro even his real name?”

“Yeah, kind of, I guess.”

“That’s not a very good answer, Ned.”

“It’s Peter! His English name is Peter.” Ned looks like he can’t decide if this situation is a good or bad thing, if he should feel guilty or not. “Maybe if you talk to him—and not me—you would get more answers. Maybe he would finally shut up about you now, too.”

“Where is he now?”

* * *

When he opens the door to his third-floor apartment, he’s wearing only his boxers and argyle socks. The second he realizes who she is, the door slams back in her face.

“¡Uno momento!” He shouts, and with it he tags on a cheap “¡por favor!” For what? Courtesy, she supposes, but it’s a bit late for that when he has already committed fraudulency.

“Cut the shit, Peter. I know you speak English!” She’s shouting through the door. The irony of the closed door between their communication is not lost on her. “Just open the door already!”

He swings it open and skids to a stop on his socked feet. He’s now wearing pants, and a shirt that’s most definitely backwards.

“Why did you pretend to not speak English?”

“I-I heard you tell Cindy you liked people who speak foreign languages.”

An eyebrow raises. “You stalking me, Peter?”

“No! I just-I found you. Not stalking. You were the first face I saw at Midtown, between the shelves.” His eyes rest somewhere on her shoulders, they don’t meet her own. “And I couldn’t help myself, when you are the way that you are. I needed you to notice me.”

He seems strategically vague at first, but then she realizes that this is simply how Peter functions. Michelle lets the new information tide over her. She needs more. “The play.”

“Er, yes?”

“What does it mean? You think we went too fast?”

“No! No, not at all. It was a… healthy speed.” Peter could not have said that more awkwardly.

“Can you expand?” Her patience is wearing thin, only holding structure by how amusing it is to see the suave Pedro melt into the bumbling puddle that is Peter Parker.

He runs both hands through his hair and MJ grows jealous at the sight. She shakes it off when he speaks, “It’s about tricking people into getting what you want. I was being greedy trying to get you through deceit, and I was scared I would lose it all once you found out. Like the characters. I needed to be more pragmatic.”

Michelle pauses, says nothing. The silence never settles around them. It hangs in the air like heavy dust. She learned this tactic in a Business Negotiation class. The quieter you are, the more they stress. He deserves it, after all.

She thinks it’s working, because Peter is basically vibrating in his place. His eyes show so much white around his already big pupils, begging to be answered.

“Okay, so you’re which character?”

“All of them. They all kind of suck.”

It’s enough to rip a coloured laugh out of her. “Then who am I?”

“You’re you. Michelle.” He says it like the answer was too easy.

It works. When she smiles he smiles, too. Speaking English together makes sense, Peter speaking Spanish to her is a bonus, but the language they understand best seems to be physical. Every action she performs is replicated onto his own face—every smile and every frown.

Michelle tells Peter, “I would’ve noticed you, if you had just said ‘hi’. I would have noticed you if you didn’t say anything at all.” Peter blushes from head, shoulders, knees & toes.

* * *

To Ned’s disdain, Peter doesn’t talk about Michelle any less. In fact, he actually talks about her even more than before. It’s getting to the point that even MJ is annoyed when she sits across from him at lunch.

They still read in silence though, legs touching, sharing heat.

**Author's Note:**

> also here are the translations for everything:
> 
> 1\. Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?  
> 2\. My name is Peter.  
> 3\. See you soon.  
> 4\. I was hoping you would come.  
> 5\. You look very pretty.  
> 6\. Each hour that passes with you feels like a second.  
> 7\. My book is getting lonely, will you join me with yours?  
> 8\. You are so smart.  
> 9\. What the boss says goes.  
> 10\. Tomorrow is another day.  
> 11\. I don’t know!  
> 12\. I’ve been thinking about you. I want, desire you, Michelle.  
> 13\. I can only think of you.  
> 14\. It took me an hour to know you, and only a day to fall in love, but it would take me a lifetime to forget you.  
> 15\. I have something to tell you, but I’m embarrassed.  
> 16\. Forgive me.  
> 17\. One moment, please.!
> 
> tysm for reading! i love you :') all reads, kudos and comments mega appreciated


End file.
